


Surrogate

by istia



Category: Stargate Atlantis
Genre: Drama, Gen, Hurt John Sheppard, Off-screen Rape, POV Evan Lorne
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2010-12-15
Updated: 2010-12-15
Packaged: 2017-10-13 16:50:41
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,999
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/139492
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/istia/pseuds/istia
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Lorne has to stand-in for Sheppard's team on a rescue mission.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Surrogate

"Sir, we found him."

Evan closed his eyes and sagged in relief. "Roger that, Sergeant. Is he able to walk out or do we need to bring a stretcher?"

"Sorry, sir, I haven't been able to determine that yet. He's in a cave, wedged into the back."

A chill ran up Evan's backbone despite the heat pounding onto his shoulders, and he shrugged away the shiver with a frown. "Is he in an unreachable position?"

"No, sir, not exactly, but he's not letting us near him. He's demanding we fetch his team, says he won't talk to anyone until they arrive."

Evan huffed out a breath. "Okay, I'm on my way. What's your position?"

The cave was in a section of hillside to the east of the quadrant Evan and Kosofsky had been searching, but it was a quick jog across the flat, arid ground. Then there was a cliff face to negotiate, and a path from the top that wound up the side of a rocky hill to the mouth of a cave. Evan wiped sweat off his upper lip as he headed up the last steep rise.

The mouth of the cave was low and narrow, but easily accessible. Evan ducked down to glance inside, but couldn't see much in the gloom. He straightened and looked at Hendricks.

"Sergeant?"

"I'm sorry, sir, but he ordered us to get out. He's refusing all questions and requests, just wants to see his team."

"Okay." He shrugged off his pack and handed it to Hendricks to hold as he dug a flashlight out of it. "Wait out here."

Hendricks' acknowledgement sounded as Evan ducked through the low entrance. Inside, he found he could stand up easily; flicking on the flashlight, he aimed it upwards and saw the jagged rock ceiling curving a good twenty feet overhead. The vaguely round cave was about the same width and length, with a thin layer of fine sand over rock covering the ground. It was blessedly cool after the heat outside; the air had a faint musty scent, not unpleasant as he drew in a testing breath.

Slightly to the left of line of sight of the entrance on the back wall was a collection of boulders that provided the only possible place a man could hide himself. With the aid of the flashlight, Evan stepped forward cautiously.

"Colonel," he called. "It's Major Lorne. Are you all right, sir?"

He'd crossed half the space before he heard Sheppard's low voice. "I've been better, but I'm okay. I told Sergeant Hendricks to call my team."

Evan reached the area and saw Sheppard was lying curled in a small space between the rocky wall and the boulders. Evan dropped to a crouch and held the light so it illuminated them both without blinding Sheppard. His first look at Sheppard wasn't reassuring.

"Yes, sir. Your team's not currently available. How about we get you out of here and you can see them on Atlantis? We haven't seen any sign of hostiles in the area, so we're good to go."

"They were nomads, Major. A few followed me through the gate when I escaped, but I lost track of them once I found this spot; they might've left already. They haven't any tech at all and shouldn't be a threat, but stay alert."

Evan nodded. "Got it."

Sheppard shifted minutely. "My team's not available?"

Even with half his face a massive bruise and one eye swollen shut, Sheppard managed a good steely look.

"They've gone to PX3-841."

Sheppard tilted his head and shot him a questioning look.

"It's in the Nebulan region."

Sheppard frowned. "Isn't that--"

"Yes, sir, it's a two-day jumper ride to and from the nearest gate. They've been gone almost three days, so they're probably on the way back now. It'll likely be over a day until they return, though."

"Damn." Sheppard lay his head back down on the pillow of his arm.

"Sir, can you tell me how badly you're hurt? Looks like they did a pretty severe number on you."

Sheppard's torn, swollen lips twisted in a grimace. "Just a bit of good, old-fashioned, pre-industrial-style torture, Major. A lot of bruising and some other damage that isn't pleasant, but isn't life-threatening."

"Good to hear, sir." Evan couldn't hold back a smile of relief, though it faded as he looked at his CO, who still wasn't making any move to leave his rough shelter.

"Are you able to move or should we get medical help first?"

He could see Sheppard swallow, which made him grab his canteen and offer it. "Water, sir?"

"Yeah, thanks."

The hand Sheppard reached out for the canteen was dirty and bloody--especially around the ends of his fingers--and shook. Evan discreetly held onto the bottom of the canteen as Sheppard drank. Sheppard hissed with pain at the first swallow, but came back for more. By the time he was done, the shake in his hand was like palsy; some of it might be cold, but Evan wouldn't rule out shock and his worry notched up further. He pulled the canteen away and capped it, then lay it down close to Sheppard's hand. Sheppard had closed his eyes, looking exhausted by the small exertion.

"Sir, I'd really like to get you out of here and into the docs' care."

Sheppard gave a wisp of a sigh. His one good eye opened and he seemed to be trying to see beyond the circle of light.

"Where are the men?"

"They're waiting outside. Sergeant Hendricks said you requested him to leave." He let the last word trail off into a subtle question.

"I really wanted to see my team. You're sure there's no chance they'll be back before tomorrow?"

He shook his head. "I'm sorry, sir, but I don't believe it's physically possible."

Sheppard nodded. "Right." He rubbed his forehead with one bloody hand, obscuring his face; when he dropped it, he was wearing a familiar, resolute look. "Major, I--" He broke off, then pressed his lips together, looking abruptly more like the forceful commander he was.

Evan found himself tensing, like the moments before battle, his mind wired as he listened intently to Sheppard's terse voice.

"They wanted information, which I didn't have, but they weren't inclined to believe it, and they'd developed various crude methods of getting what they wanted."

As Sheppard paused again, Evan said slowly, "Fists, boots." He grimaced as he glanced at Sheppard's raw fingers. "Pliers."

Sheppard half-smiled. "Yeah. You get the picture."

He didn't say anything else. Evan shifted, his knees starting to ache in the crouch.

"But no severe or internal damage," he prompted at last.

After a lengthy pause, when he was about to try another prompt, Sheppard shifted in his tight, rocky nest. When he spoke, his voice was so low that Evan leaned forward.

"Major, I know you've had the basic SGC training courses on torture."

Evan nodded, but Sheppard wasn't looking at him, so he made an affirmative sound in his throat.

"You also know the standard procedures for dealing with the aftermath of imprisonment by a hostile." He looked straight at Evan. "The policies in place."

"Yes, sir." He wasn't sure where exactly Sheppard was headed, but hazarded a guess. "Mandatory counseling, psych evals."

Sheppard nodded his head, then stopped, wincing, and lifted a hand to rub his forehead. "Yeah, those. Just standard practice. I've been through it all before, both on Earth and here, like after my first encounter with Todd."

Evan nodded, trying both to keep Sheppard talking and to figure out where this roundabout discussion of procedures was going. "My team and I went through the routine after being held by Radim."

Never fun to be put under a microscope after a particularly grueling experience, but it was part of being a soldier operating in enemy territory. He frowned, failing to see what relevance those policies had right now. Sheppard knew exactly what he faced, so...?

"Right. Standard procedure, no big deal." Sheppard drew in a noisy breath, then dropped his voice even lower after a quick darting look around the space behind Evan. "But it's not standard when sexual coercion is part of the torture."

Evan's mind whited out for a moment, then all his muscles tensed. Jesus _fuck_. He clamped down on a surge of rage and forced himself not to turn the flashlight straight on Sheppard to take a closer look at him.

He dropped his voice as low as Sheppard's and leaned closer. "And that's the situation, sir?"

Sheppard's one good eye blinked and his mouth tightened. His words were clipped despite the softness of his voice, steel inside a feather binding. "I've been through this before, too, Major. I know how to handle it and what to expect in the upcoming weeks. The usual trauma counseling will provide all the help I need to get the memories and my response to them under control so I can function properly."

He set his one eye on Evan, who froze, attention fixed, like he was pinned in place.

"But the SGC, like every branch of the US military, takes the view that red-blooded American men need 'special handling' to protect their heterosexual self-esteem if they're...compromised in the field."

Bitterness laced the last phrase, hanging in the air between them as the pieces fell into place in Evan's head like tumbling dominoes. He pushed the knowledge that rape wasn't new to Sheppard to the back of his mind; not the point right now, except for him to accept it as Sheppard offered it: as evidence Sheppard knew the parameters of what he faced, and what kind of help he'd need.

The important point, the point that had Sheppard curled up in the back of this cave, was that if the SGC found out, they'd almost certainly demand he return to Earth for heavy-duty evaluation and counseling. And this time, they didn't have Dr. Weir to fight for Sheppard's return. Atlantis could fucking _lose_ Sheppard entirely if the evals didn't go well--and, shit, it wasn't like Sheppard was known to be the most cooperative person in the world when it came to probings into his personal life or his feelings even under less.... Well. Arduous circumstances, to coin a fucking euphemism.

Mind whirling, Evan did a lightning quick evaluation of the new psychologist in the city, Heightmeyer's replacement. Compton didn't have Heightmeyer's charm, but he was perceptive and a good listener, and he had his own brand of warmth. By now, too, he'd been on Atlantis long enough to have made his own first contact with each member of the expedition, beyond simply the contents of Heightmeyer's records.

Sheppard could lose Atlantis if he had to report to a stranger, or possibly several strangers in turn; and maybe a review board. No wonder he'd hoped to have his team run interference for him. He was alone on this mission just as much now as he'd been while a prisoner.

Except, no: he really fucking wasn't.

Evan took a deep breath, steadying his nerves and clearing his mind like readying for battle. "Okay." He leaned close again, pitching his voice low. "Nobody needs to know that part, sir, except the doc. What I'm going to do is get the doc here to do an initial exam, and we'll explain the situation before we go back to Atlantis. All right?"

Sheppard's body sagged, like all the adrenaline flowed out of him at once, leaving him shaking. He drew his hands in closer to his body, maybe to try to hide the tremors; a rough iron bar he'd been clutching, shaped like a baton, scraped across the rock at his movement. He nodded, but spoke again in a low, hoarse voice. "Not Keller."

Evan had to strain to hear and wasn't sure he'd got it right. "Sir?"

"Young." Sheppard licked his lips, looking like he was losing energy at a rapid pitch. He closed his eyes. "Very...young."

Okay. Okay, yeah, she was young, obviously, but she was also the CMO and a professional.... He looked at Sheppard's protective curl, the rocky fortification he'd fit himself into. He pictured the type of examination and questions Sheppard was going to have to endure, another interrogation, and grimaced because, yeah, Keller was brilliant and kind, but she had next to no actual field experience. She didn't have any comparative measure of her own to judge Sheppard's emotional condition by.

He raced mentally through possibilities, sorting and discarding rapidly to the best scenario. He leaned forward again.

"I'm going to send for Dr. Klaasen. Is that all right, sir?"

He waited, his hand sweaty on the flashlight despite the cool air as he gripped it too hard; but patient, giving Sheppard time to think it over, relieved when he got a curt nod of acceptance. Klaasen was a Dutch-Canadian physician with years of combat experience with Peacekeeping forces as well as off-world with the SGC, including a stint in the same Afghanistan Sheppard had known; Klaasen knew both battlefield trauma and the treatment of POWs first-hand.

Evan leaned close and murmured, "I'll take care of it, sir. Just rest."

He pushed himself up on creaky knees and ducked outside into a wall of heat. Squinting as he flipped his shades over his eyes, he sent Inoue to the gate with instructions to bring back Dr. Klaasen and no one else, the Colonel's express order. Inoue nodded and took off at a fast jog.

He dug a foil blanket out of his pack and ducked back into the cave. Sheppard started when he spread the blanket over him, but settled at Evan's murmur. Sheppard didn't seem inclined to talk, so Evan left him the privacy he'd soon be losing and settled himself just inside the entrance, gaze set outwards on the sun-drenched plain and the crooked ridge of red mountains beyond, which looked fancifully like a recumbent dragon guarding the edge of the world. Sheppard was quiet behind him, and Evan kept as still as he could for the vigil, feeling fiercely protective of the fragile, deceptive peace that was all he could offer his CO.

Inoue returned with Klaasen in less than an hour. Evan straightened with a mental sigh--relief, and readying himself for action--and turned into the back of the cave to let Sheppard know. He waited until Sheppard, body tensing under the blanket, gave a jerky nod before he turned and left.

Paul Klaasen was a slim blade of a man with grey-shot black hair and an aquiline face; a scar branded his left cheekbone like a pale starfish. He was carrying a battered leather medical bag, not SGC issue. He squinted in the sun's glare as Evan met him at the bottom of the path below the cave.

"Major. The Colonel wants me?"

Evan smiled and nodded, false and practiced as the show he put on for natives. He told Inoue he'd made good time and sent him to patrol with Kosofsky, then called Hendricks down and established him in the shade fifty feet to the south overlooking the approach from the gate in the valley below. He then led Klaasen up to the cave, pausing outside.

"Well, Major?" Klaasen frowned at him.

Evan met Klaasen's narrowed eyes. "The Colonel escaped his captors and was hiding when we found him, but he was a prisoner long enough to be tortured. From the little I could see, he seems to have bruises and other external injuries of varying age, some very recent."

Klaasen nodded, his gaze intent. Evan held his eyes.

"Their methods were crude, but included sexual assault. Colonel Sheppard wanted someone with more field experience than Dr. Keller to examine him and...make the assessment. I thought you'd be best suited for that purpose."

Klaasen's eyes narrowed further, but he said nothing, just pursed his lips. He tilted his head towards the cave mouth, and Evan nodded and handed him the flashlight.

"I'll be out here if you need me."

Klaasen didn't hesitate, ducking inside. Evan moved away from the opening until he couldn't hear even a murmur from within, and leaned against the rocky hillside, his hands gripping the comforting familiarity of his P-90. He was relieved Sheppard had managed to get away on his own, but he'd give a months' pay for a viable target to shoot at right this moment; he didn't ask much, just the chance to mow down a few of the assholes who'd held Sheppard. The planet was deserted, though; at least, best they could tell since some element in the red rocks seemed to block clear readings from their scanners. An intermittent signal that might've been from Sheppard's subcutaneous transmitter--if it wasn't a tech hiccup--had made Evan stay to search the quadrants within reach of the gate just in case, but they'd seen no sign of anyone else. The nomads had either given up searching for Sheppard and left the planet or gone farther afield from the gate looking for him.

They'd had no idea where Sheppard had been taken when he'd disappeared from the market on P49-L2J on a routine mission. Ten days he'd been missing, in total. Ten days of contacting every one of their allies in hopes of some intel, even the vaguest of vague rumor; of offering reward money for information on every market planet they knew; and following up the few leads that trickled in. The most promising had sent Sheppard's team on the long trip to PX3-841. Evan's team had followed a far hazier trail to this dusty world with its blazing sun and crumbling evidence of long-forgotten civilization.

Medieval-era, Kosofsky, the bookish member of his team, had speculated of the red-stone ruins crowding the gate as she'd taken a preliminary look around.

 _Medieval_ seemed to be the word of the day.

He forced away the flare of images that flooded his senses, backing them into a dark room in a corner of his brain and slamming the door. It was enough to know, objectively, what had been done to Sheppard; he didn't damned well need to see it in action in his head in fucking 3D Technicolor. He took a deep breath and loosened his grip on his gun with deliberation, then tapped his radio and checked in with his people. His own team, their voices familiar in his ear as family, their natures known and dependable. His thoughts skittered to Sheppard curled up in the cave, hurting; looking shorn of all defenses without his team, weak as Samson with his hair cut off--

He forced that thought away, too, pushing it into the dark with the others. He focused on the land spread below him and its potential threats, staying watchful while occupying the unruly, imaginative part of his brain with figuring out what colors he'd need to mix to replicate the distinctive red of the dragon hills and the plain itself and the pillars around the gate. But everything remained quiet, like the world was as empty as it had first looked when he'd stepped through the gate; and he had nothing to shoot.

Klaasen emerged from the cave three-quarters' of an hour later. He'd removed his jacket and was unrolling his shirt sleeves down over his tanned, sinewy forearms as he joined Evan. Klaasen stood beside him and stared out at the plain.

"The Colonel's going to be fine, Major."

Evan let out a breath he hadn't realized he was holding, and nodded. "Okay." After the initial spike of relief, though, anxiety swept back, an inexorable tide, and he shifted, trying to ease the tension knotting his shoulders.

Klaasen's voice remained cool and even. "I've agreed with him that informing the SGC of all the particulars of his captivity would serve no useful purpose for either the Colonel or Atlantis."

Okay. Okay, good. Exactly what Sheppard wanted, and what Atlantis sure as hell needed. Evan nodded, wanting to be relieved at everything being handled properly, but instead floundering in sudden doubt. He turned to Klaasen.

"This really is what's best for _Sheppard_ , right, Doc?"

Klaasen turned and met his eyes with one of his direct looks. Klaasen studied him a moment, then smiled, faint, but reassuring. "In my opinion, yes. I wouldn't have agreed to the subterfuge otherwise." He turned to face Evan bodily, and Evan straightened, wary. "I've told the Colonel, however, that I must inform Dr. Keller of all details. She's the head of Medicine and will need to sign off on the report for the SGC. Also, she's Sheppard's primary doctor and needs to be fully informed, even if I continue to provide care for him while he recovers from this particular incident. There's a remote chance she won't agree with my assessment, but--" he gave a reassuring shrug "--I think it's a very remote possibility indeed."

Relief did flood him now, a fucking tsunami's worth, and he dropped his head and pinched the bridge of his nose. "Long day," he murmured, as he pushed himself upright, and Klaasen gave him another fleeting smile before soberly eyeing the steep path and the switchback trail down to the distant gate on the plain.

"I want to get the Colonel back to the city as soon as possible. He probably won't accept a stretcher, but he's going to need help. I suppose there's no way to get a jumper through the gate past those columns?"

Evan shook his head. "Sorry, Doc, we're stuck doing it the hard way. We'll be good to go whenever you're ready." He raised a hand to his radio as Klaasen went back into the cave.

Sheppard, as expected, adamantly refused to be carried--and Evan couldn't blame him; he wouldn't want to be strapped helpless to a stretcher while carted down those steep trails, either--which made for a slow trip since apparently the pliers hadn't been used only on his fingernails.

It was odd, though, how--even with Evan holding onto him on one side and Klaasen on the other, with Hendricks sticking close to them in front with many glances over his shoulder, apparently poised to catch Sheppard if they both somehow or other negligently dropped him, and Inoue and Kosofsky roaming on each side and their six, relentless and vigilant sentinels; a veritable fucking _wall_ of protective bodies encircling him--Sheppard still seemed alone, unreachable. Even while touching him, Evan felt like Sheppard was draped in a cloak of isolation that severed him from their offered strength.

Only the next night, late, when the infirmary was quiet at midnight with dimmed lights and minimal staff, after Klaasen had conferred with Keller and Keller had spent a quarter hour alone with Sheppard, then twenty minutes with Sheppard, Klaasen, and Dr. Compton; even later, after Klaasen had quietly let Evan know Keller had agreed the SGC had no need to know all the details of this incident; only then, when most people were in bed and there were no guards here in this safe place, and Colonel Carter and other visitors had been and gone; when Sheppard had fewer people around him than at any time since they'd found him: Then, at last, with Teyla curled up in a chair at his right side, her small hand resting atop his bandaged one, and Rodney at his left tapping away on a laptop resting on the narrow bed, its back edge pressing against Sheppard's thigh regardless of whatever bruises he might have, and Ronon sprawled in a chair at the foot balancing a knife on his thumb while intoning to himself some kind of Satedan poem, or possibly a song, that seemed to commemorate a great many gory deaths; with Sheppard himself asleep, lean body relaxed as a dropped puppet, seeming all bruises, stitches and bandages and oddly small in the bed:

Sheppard finally looked whole, and home; and invulnerable.

Evan nodded to himself and turned quietly away.


End file.
